We are Modern Orthodox and are a constituent member of the United Synagogue

ISRAEL UPDATE 28.7.22

E.R.

 

 

With self-triage upon check-in and robots to help you find your way, the world’s largest emergency room opened in Israel on Thursday at Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Centre (Ichilov).Read more here

 

COUNTER TERRORISM

A Palestinian man armed with a knife, suspected of planning a stabbing attack, was detained by police officers in Jerusalem’s Old City early Friday. He was spotted by officers who were monitoring security cameras after he “suspiciously followed worshippers”. Read more here

 

 

Two members of Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, were killed Sunday morning after they shot at an IDF force that had entered Nablus to arrest terror suspects. A number of terrorists barricaded themselves in a house and fired live rounds and explosives at the Israel force, which responded with live fire. A large number of weapons and explosive devices were found inside the house. Read more here

 

 

The Israeli Navy sank a vessel smuggling equipment intended for Hamas including ammunition and anti-tank missiles off the coast of Gaza on Sunday. The crew swam ashore. Read more here

 

 

On Tuesday, an Israeli undercover force arrested two Palestinian terror suspects in broad daylight on the outskirts of Bethlehem. Read more here

 

 

GAZA

Israeli Defence Minister Gantz urged the global community to exact a “heavy price” from Hamas, as the IDF revealed evidence showing how the terrorist organization conducts operations near civilian sites in the Gaza Strip, putting the lives of residents at risk. Examples included footage of  Hamas terror tunnels located underneath schools that serve as emergency shelters, and stretching along a medical storage compound and a central ambulance centre, next to a Pepsi factory and also close to a mosque. A Hamas weapons production site is located near the al-Shifa hospital where an explosion could kill hundreds of civilians and damage health infrastructure. Read more here

 

 

 

COVID-19 RESEARCH

Researchers in Israel & Russia found that Vitamin D supplements can help to protect Covid-19 patients. The probability of death was found to be higher by as much as 50% in covid patients with severe Vitamin D deficiency, while this probability fell to 5% in patients with good levels of the vitamin.Read more here

 

 

UKRAINE

 

 

20 Ukrainian mental health professionals recently spent two weeks in Israel receiving training on treating trauma cases. Israel, which has gone suffered numerous wars and has a large population of Holocaust survivors, has deep experience in treating psychological or mental trauma. In Ukraine, awareness for recognizing and treating mental trauma remains relatively low and the country is not equipped to deal with the massive numbers of people affected by the Russian invasion.Read more here

 

 

 

INDIA

 

 

A delegation of 90 entrepreneurs and investors from India’s JITO Incubation & Innovation Foundation (JIFF) were imtroduced to leading Israeli companies and accelerators in the fields of defence and homeland security, food-tech, smart cities and cybersecurity during a recent visit to Israel.  The visit is seen as a boost to any future Free Trade Agreement between the countries. Read more here

 

 

APPLE

 

Apple is setting up a third R&D centre in Israel in addition to those in Herzliya and Haifa. Last month, Apple announced that it is expanding its engineering R&D hub in the city of Rawabi in the Palestinian Authority, which currently employs over 60 engineers. Read more here

 

 

DEFENCE

 

Israel Aerospace Industries has signed a contract worth over $200 million to provide special mission aircraft to a European NATO member country. IAI’s special mission aircraft provide a strategic edge because they utilize miniaturized sensor technologies alongside developing algorithms and software applications based on artificial intelligence and machine learning. Read more here

 

 

SHOPPING

 

The major French supermarket chain Carrefour is to open stores in Israel and the Dutch-owned international supermarket chain SPAR has also signed agreements to open branches there.Read more here

 

 

FIGHTING SUPERMARKET FRAUD

 

 

Scan-and-go systems, where customers use a scanner gun to register items then put them in a trolley, have given thieves new opportunities. Some shoppers scan a cheaper item or choose not to scan some goods at all. To combat this, SuperSmart, an Israeli tech company, has developed a system that can weigh an entire trolley at the tills. This checks to see if the items scanned match the total weight. Read more here   (paywall)

 

 

 

TANZANIA

 

 

Rafi Ryker (25) has founded Afrikan, a volunteer organisation staffed by former IDF officers, utilising Israeli ingenuity and leadership skills to help Tanzanian villagers to improve their lives. Read more here

 

 

ENVIRONMENT

 

Israeli company WeFill’s mission is to reduce its customers’ plastic waste, working with a reusable container-based model, eliminating single-use packaging. Read more here

 

 

 

FOOD-TECH

 

 

Sweet Block chewing gum, developed by Sweet Victory,  can help overcome sugar cravings by making “sugar taste like sand”. Read more here

 

 

Israeli food tech start-up Mush Foods leverages food waste to grow an edible mushroom, mycelium, which can be added to meat to produce a leaner, healthier “hybrid” alternative.Read more here

 

 

Israeli tech firm Vanilla Vida claims to have created the world’s “strongest-ever” vanilla flavours. Read more here

 

 

FILM

 

Israeli film students Shulamit Lifshitz and Oriel Berkovits have won a BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) award at the annual Yugo BAFTA Student Awards for 2022, in the Live Action category for their film “Girl No. 60427.” Combining animation and film photography, the 22-minute drama is based on Lifshitz’s relationship with her Holocaust-survivor grandmother and the discovery of her diary. Read more here

 

 

British-French Charlotte Gainsbourg actress was in Israel with her family for the screening of her new film, directed by her Israeli-French husband,  at the Jerusalem Film Festival. Read more here

 

 

 

ROBOTICS

 

 

After 5 years of development, Intuition Robotics have officially launched their ElliQ system, a robotic “companion” which was created to engage and interact with elderly people and to keep them active and connected to the outside world. Read more here

 

 

 

TRAVEL

 

 

 

Speaking at the Google tourism conference in Tel Aviv, El Al  announced that the airline intends to launch direct flights from Israel to Melbourne and Tokyo. Read more here

 

 

Frequent traveller Tzahi Zilbershtein has set up a site, view here  which predicts how crowded Ben Gurion airport is likely to be. The Hebrew site forecasts how busy the arrivals hall, check-in, and security checks in the terminals are likely to be with five ratings: deserted, light, medium, heavy, and peak. Read more here

 

 

 

AUTO TECH

 

 

Mobileye has updated tens of thousands of Zeekr electric cars in China with what it calls “one of the world’s most advanced highway assist packages”. The Jerusalem-based developer of driver assistance technologies was acquired by Intel Corp. in 2017. Read more here

 

 

Saudi Arabian company Mithaq Capital has increased its small stake in the Israeli autotech company Otonomo Technologies to 20.4%. The company provides a platform and commercial arena for data gathered from connected cars. Read more here

 

 

EARTHQUAKE WARNING

 

 

Researchers from Ariel University have reported that by studying changes in the ionosphere layer caused by both acoustic and gravity waves, they can make a positive prediction of a strong earthquake up to 48 hours ahead with 80% accuracy and a prediction where an earthquake will not occur with 86% accuracy. read more here

 

 

SPORT

 

 

Tel Aviv has been added to the tennis ATP Tour 250 in 2022, bringing international tennis back to Israel at its highest level. The Tel Aviv Watergen Open 2022 is likely to attract some of the world’s top ranked players. Read more here

 

 

Israeli footballer Manor Solomon finally signed for Fulham and gave his first interview. View here

 

 

MOSSAD INVESTIGATION

 

A terrorist attack in 1992 which killed 29 people at the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, and a second in 1994 killing 85 people at the city’s Jewish community centre, were carried out by a Hizbullah unit, according to an investigation by the Mossad, Israel’s secret service. Israeli intelligence believes that Iran approved and funded the attacks and supplied training and equipment. The same Hizbullah operatives responsible for the community centre bombing were behind the downing of a Panamanian plane the next day that killed 21 passengers, including 12 leaders of the Jewish community in Panama. The attackers were not brought to justice and are living in Lebanon. Read more here

 

COMMENT & OPINION

 

 

Khaled Abu Toameh: The Palestinian Authority is rapidly losing control of the northern West Bank, where hundreds of gunmen belonging to the ruling Fatah faction and Palestinian Islamic Jihad have increased their presence and activities in recent months. Most of the gunmen are based in and around Nablus and Jenin, and have stepped up attacks on Israeli civilians and IDF soldiers and installations. The phenomenon has also spread to large parts of Ramallah, where Fatah-affiliated gunmen seem to have established their own law-enforcement agencies.
PA leaders are aware that there’s little they can do to disarm the armed groups. Meanwhile, the Palestinian public continues to view the gunmen as “heroes” who are ready to sacrifice their lives for the Palestinian cause, while the PA leaders and security forces are denounced as “traitors” and “collaborators” with Israel. Read more here

 

 

Emily Schrader: “There is a war on Palestinians today, but it’s not being waged by Israel, it’s being waged by the undemocratic, corrupt, hypocritical Palestinian leaders. The entire “free Palestine” movement and its supporters have turned their backs on Palestinians and are willfully blind to the crimes against humanity they are suffering.” Read more here